French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

  32. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP 1950.

  33. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP, August 1951-March 1952.

  34. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP, 9 December 1952.

  35. SHAT, 10H 375, 2e REI 1952.

  CHAPTER 25

  1. SHAT, 10H 375, “Rapport sur le moral,” 3e REI, 4th trimestre 1950.

  2. SHAT, 10H 375, “Rapport sur le moral,” 4th trimester 1950.

  3. Erulin, Les nationalités à la Légion étrangère, 61 h.

  4. Paillat, Dossier secret, 20.

  5. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 137. A 15 December 1947 report provoked by a Tass article claiming that the Legion was enlisting ex-SS in Germany and Austria reiterated that ex-German soldiers and NCOs could be enlisted, but excluded enlistment of ex-SS, who must be identified by their tattoos, and ex-officers of the Wehrmacht because they were “unassimilatable.” SHAT, 1 OH 184, 15 December 1947.

  6. Henry Ainley, In Order to Die, 17.

  7. Erulin, Les nationalités, 6/A.

  8. SHAT, 10H 375, 1st semester 1951; 10H 2262, 12 January 1953; 10 H 374, 1st semester 1953.

  9. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 77.

  10. Kemencei, Legionnaire en avant!, 141.

  11. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 62–4.

  12. Lieutenant Basset, journal de Marche, Indochine 1951–54 (Nîmes: unpublished manuscript, Salle d'honneur, 2e REI), 3–4.

  13. Pierre Sergent, Ma peau au bout de mes idées (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1967), 89.

  14. ALE, 2e REI, “Rapport sur le Moral et l'état d'esprit: 4e trimestre 1949,” 4.

  15. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 3rd semester, 1950.

  16. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester, 1952.

  17. 10H 376, REC, 1st semester 1953. In 1953, the commander of a Legion engineering section stated that he had men “who do not even know how to shoot a rifle” because their engineer training did not include this rather essential detail. SHAT, 10H 378, génie, 1st semester 1953. Indeed, this author was told by Legion veterans of Indochina that some recruits were sent to Indochina with no training whatsoever.

  18. Ainley, In Order to Die, 17–20.

  19. SHAT, 10H 375, 2e REI, 3e trimester 1949.

  20. SHAT, 10H 3174, 15 March 1951. See also 10H 2262, 12 January 1953.

  21. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI and GM 3, 1954.

  22. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester 1953.

  23. SHAT, 10H 375, III/5e REI, 6 June 1954.

  24. SHAT, 10H 2262, 17 August 1953.

  25. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester 1953.

  26. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, July 1951.

  27. SHAT, 10H 2262, 12 January 1953.

  28. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st and 2nd semesters 1951.

  29. SHAT, 10H 375, II/5e REI, 2 June 1953.

  30. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP, 2nd semester 1953.

  31. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951.

  32. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 26 May 1952, and 1954.

  33. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1954.

  34. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE 1950.

  35. SHAT, 10H 375, 1952.

  36. SHAT, 10H 2262, 12 April 1951.

  37. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE 1950.

  38. SHAT, 10H 375, 13e DBLE 1950 & 5e REI, 6 June 1954.

  39. SHAT, 10H 376, 1e BEP, 2nd semester 1953.

  40. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester 1952.

  41. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 26 May 1952.

  42. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 1950.

  43. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 174.

  44. SHAT, 10H 375, 2e REI, 1st semester 1953.

  45. SHAT, 10H 376, III/13e DBLE, 1st semester 1952.

  46. Kemencei, Legionnaire en avant!, 174.

  47. Ainley, In Order to Die, 222.

  48. Ainley, In Order to Die, 144–5.

  49. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 138.

  50. Ainley, In Order to Die, 42–3.

  51. Ainley, In Order to Die, 29, 37.

  52. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 138–40.

  53. Ainley, In Order to Die, 56, 218.

  54. Ainley, In Order to Die, 103–4.

  55. Ainley, In Order to Die, 115–16.

  56. Ainley, In Order to Die, 188.

  57. SHAT, 10H 375, 1 July 1952.

  58. Ainley, In Order to Die, 188, 221.

  59. Lieutenant Basset, Journal de Marche, Indochine 1951–54, 49, 60.

  60. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 174.

  61. Ainley, In Order to Die, 146,153. Several Legion commanders complained that the shortage of NCOs had led to a decline in efficiency and to “serious crimes,” including rape, desertion, drunkenness and refusal to obey orders. See SHAT, 1 OH 3174, 10 August 1950 and 20 March 1951; also 10H 375, 24 February 1950.

  62. See SHAT, 10H 184 for a rather lengthy correspondence on this issue.

  63. The captain of the Joffre wrote in March 1949 that “the general insubordination of the troops and the lack of authority of the officers are the cause of the repeated incidents and a source of disorder on board” (SHAT, 10H 184, 1 March 1949). See also Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 186–94, on the utter lack of concern of Legion officers for the comfort of their men on the return journey. He was also scandalized by the inedible food and “openly communist” crew members.

  64. SHAT, 10H 184, 27 September 1952.

  65. Pierre Sergent, Un étrange Monsieur Frey (Paris: Fayard, 1982), 255.

  66. SHAT, 10H 3239, 10 October 1951. See also Jacques Doyon, Les soldats blancs de Ho Chi Minh (Paris: Fayard, 1973).

  67. Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place (New York and Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1967), 269–70.

  68. See SHAT, 10H 3239 for several incidents. Ainley wrote that two legionnaires in his company helped the Viet Minh blow up an ammunition dump. In Order to Die, 205–6. Sgt. Stojkiewitch of the Il/3e REI, taken prisoner at Cao Bang, was interrogated by two Legion deserters, a German and a Hungarian. SHAT, 10H 1142.

  69. SHAT, 10H 184, 15 January 1949.

  70. SHAT, 10H 3239.

  71. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 2nd semester 1952 & 1953.

  72. SHAT, 10H 375, II/5e REI, June 1954.

  73. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 2nd semester 1953.

  74. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951.

  75. SHAT, 10H 2262, 3 December 1953.

  76. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951.

  77. Gras, Histoire de la guerre d'Indochine, 572.

  78. SHAT, 10H 375, I/5e REI, 12 November 1952.

  79. SHAT, 10H 2262, 12 January 1953.

  80. SHAT, 10H 375, 2nd semester 1953.

  81. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1954.

  82. SHAT, 10H 375, III/5e REI, 6 June 1954.

  83. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951.

  84. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 131.

  85. SHAT, 10H 376, 1e REC, December 1951.

  86. Hubert Ivanoff, Le Premier régiment étranger de cavalerie en Indochine, 1947–1956 (Montpellier: mémoire de maêtrise, Université Paul Valéry, 1982), 119–23.

  87. SHAT, 10H 3174, 10 April 1951.

  88. SHAT, 10H 376, 1er BEP, 1st semester 1953.

  89. Gras, Histoire de la guerre d'Indochine, 444; Franchini, Les guerres d'Indochine, II, 64–5.

  90. SHAT, 10H 3174, Pelleterat de Borde, “Rapport exceptionel” 28 March 1951.

  91. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951. See also 10H 375, 5e REI, 2nd semester 1951, and 1 OH 3174, 15 March 1951, for similiar complaints about Vietnamization in the Legion.

  92. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, 1st semester 1951.

  93. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester 1952.

  94. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI, 1st semester 1952.

  95. SHAT, 10H 3174, 17 May 1953.

  96. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, December 1952.

  97. Basset, Journal de marche, Indochine 1951–54, 31.

  98. SHAT, 10H 3174, 29 May 1951.

  99. SHAT, 10H 376, August 1951-March 1952; 2nd semester 1954.

  100. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP, 1st semester 1954.


  CHAPTER 26

  1. Kubiak, “Opération Castor ... Verdun 1954,” Képi blanc, October 1962: 36. Quoted in Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 137.

  2. Gras, Histoire de la guerre d'Indochine, 546–7.

  3. Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 281.

  4. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 147.

  5. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 15 December 1954.

  6. Philip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History 1946–1975 (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1988), 214–20.

  7. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 272.

  8. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 268.

  9. SHAT, 10H 375, 3e REI, May 1954.

  10. SHAT, 10H 375, 5e REI and GM3, 1954.

  11. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, May 1954.

  12. Robert Bonnafous, “Les Prisonniers du corps expéditionnaire français dans les camps Viêt-Minh (1945–1954),” Guerres mondiales, no. 147 (1987): 94, 102.

  13. Gras, Histoire de la guerre d'Indochine, 512.

  14. SHAT, 10H 376, 2e BEP, 2nd semester 1953.

  15. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 15 December 1954.

  16. Basset, Journal de marche, Indochine 1951–54, 61.

  17. Brunon et al., Livre d'or de la Légion étrangère, 389.

  18. Erulin, Les nationality à la Légion étrangère, 2/F.

  19. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 15 December 1954.

  CHAPTER 27

  1. SHAT, 10H 376, 13e DBLE, 15 December 1954.

  2. Laurent Beccaria, Hélie de Saint Marc (Paris: Perrin, 1988), 148.

  3. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 286–7; Beccaria, Saint Marc, 148–9 and note.

  4. Kemencei, Légionnaire, 291–2.

  5. ALE, “Rapport sur le Moral,” 1st semester 1955, 5e REI.

  6. Jacques Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger (Paris: Plon, 1971), 55.

  7. Alistair Home, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (London: Mac-millan, 1977), 98–9.

  8. Henri Le Mire, Histoire militaire de la guerre d'Algérie (Paris: Albin Michel, 1982), 16, estimates that 3,000 Moslems were killed. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 27, gives a more detached discussion of figures, pointing out that even if one accepts the very lowest estimates of 1,200 Moslems killed, they exceeded in any case the deaths of Europeans by a ratio of twelve to one.

  9. Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger, 54.

  10. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 301–2.

  11. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 122–3.

  12. Jean Planchais, Une histoire politique de l'armée. Vol 2: 1940–1962. de De Gaulle à de Gaulle (Paris: Le Seuil, 1967), 274–6.

  13. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 297–8, 303—4.

  14. Murray, Legionnaire, 54, 56.

  15. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 298.

  16. Antoine Ysquierdo, Une guerre pour rien (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1966), 43.

  17. Sergent, Ma peau au bout de mes idées, 96–7.

  18. Ysquierdo, Une guerre pour rien, 53–4.

  19. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 288.

  20. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 139–42.

  21. Peter Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: The Analysis of a Political and Military Doctrine (New York: 1964), 44–5, 50–1; Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 221.

  22. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 165–6.

  23. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 171.

  24. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 115.

  25. Murray, Legionnaire, 55–74.

  26. Jean Feller, Le Dossier de l'armée française: La Guerre de “Cinquante Ans.” 1914–1962 (Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin, 1966), 475.

  27. Murray, Légionnaire, 158–9.

  28. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 318.

  29. Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger, 28–9.

  CHAPTER 28

  1. Murray,.Legionnaire, 48–9.

  2. Jean Lartéguy, The Centurions (New York: Dutton, 1962), 417–18.

  3. Jean Lartéguy, The Praetorians (New York: Dutton, 1963), 50, 54.

  4. Planchais, Une histoire politique de l'armée, Vol. 2, 352.

  5. Lartéguy, The Praetorians, 54.

  6. Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger, 135–40.

  7. Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger, 164.

  8. Planchais, Histoire politique, Vol. 2, 302–3.

  9. Massu, La vraie bataille d'Alger, 164–6.

  10. Beccaria, Hélie de Saint Marc, 174–7.

  11. Murray, Legionnaire, 67–8.

  12. Ysquierdo, Une guerre pour rien, 93.

  13. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 322–3.

  14. Henri-Paul Simon, Contre la torture (Paris: Le Seuil, 1957), 95–6, 121–2.

  15. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 195–207.

  16. Ysquierdo, Une guerre pour rien, 16.

  17. Hora, Mon tour du monde, 183–4.

  18. ALE, letters of 1 and 8 October 1958, and certificate.

  19. Murray, Legionnaire, 160, 196.

  20. Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare, 34–5.

  21. J. Duncan Love et al., Helicopter Operations in the French-Algerian War (McLean, VA: Research Analysis Corporation, 1965), 16–35.

  22. Murray, Legionnaire, 95–102.

  CHAPTER 29

  1. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 305–7.

  2. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 344–5.

  3. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 347.

  4. Sergent, Ma peau au bout de mes idées, 172–3.

  5. Sergent, Ma peau au bout de mes idées, 193–4.

  6. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 393–4.

  7. Sergent, Ma peau, 164.

  8. Sergent, Ma peau, 215.

  9. Sergent, Ma peau, 216–25.

  10. Sergent, Ma peau, 154–6, 242.

  11. J. R. Tournoux, Jamais Dit (Paris: Plon, 1971), 242–3.

  12. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 432, 545.

  13. Beccaria, Saint Marc, 203.

  14. Pierre Sergent, Je ne regrette hen (Paris: Fayard, 1972), 458.

  15. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 348.

  16. Beccaria, Saint Marc, 221–2.

  17. Ysquierdo, Une guerre pour rien, 102.

  18. Beccaria, Saint Marc, 221–2.

  19. Hora, Mon tour, 208.

  20. ALE, Rapport sur le morale, 1er REI, 21 November 1961.

  21. Sergent, Ma peau, 253.

  22. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 343.

  23. Beccaria, Saint Marc, 227–8.

  24. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 348.

  25. Le Mire, Histoire militaire, 343.

  26. Murray, Legionnaire, 137–8.

  27. Sergent, Ma peau, 274–5.

  28. Murray, Legionnaire, 138.

  29. Murray, Legionnaire, 139–41.

  30. Beccaria, Saint Marc, 246.

  31. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 336.

  32. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 336.

  33. ALE, Rapport sur le moral, 1er REI, 21 November 1961.

  34. Kemencei, Légionnaire en avant!, 338–9.

  35. Murray, Legionnaire, 142.

  36. ALE, Rapport sur le moral, 1er REI, 21 November 1961.

  37. Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 542.

  38. ALE, Rapport sur le moral, 1er REI, 21 November 1961.

  39. Murray, Legionnaire, 211.

  CHAPTER 30

  1. Murray, Legionnaire, 80.

  2. William Brooks, “The French Foreign Legion Today: An American 82nd Airborne Vet Provides an Inside Look,” Part One, Soldier of Fortune, Vol. 3 No. 4 (July 1978), 64–6.

  3. Brooks, “The French Foreign Legion Today,” Part Two, Soldier of Fortune, Vol. 3 No. 5 (September 1978), 39.

  4. SHAT, 12P 82, 28 June, 1943.

  5. Brooks, “The French Foreign Legion Today,” Part Three, Soldier of Fortune, Vol. 3 No. 6 (November 1978), 70. This view has also been expressed to the author by French officers, although they concede that the operation was well executed.

  6. Jennings, A Mouthful of Rocks, 156.

  7. Brooks, “The
French Foreign Legion Today,” Part Three, 76–7.

  8. Letter to the author from William Brooks.

  9. Christian Jennings claimed that, “Three people I had met had been completely prepared to kill various Sergeants or Corporals because of the treatment they had received from them.” Jennings, A Mouthful of Rocks, 109–10.

  10. Gordon, The French in Algiers, 18.

  11. M. M, Memoirs of the Foreign Legion, 168–9.

  12. Murray, Legionnaire, 63.

  13. Jennings, A Mouthful of Rocks, 181.

  14. Letter to the author from William Brooks.

  15. Hora, Mon tour du monde, 202.

  16. Letter to the author from William Brooks.

  17. Some of them were enemy nationals who were used profitably to police French colonial possessions. Others were also Jews whose capture by the Germans might have caused them serious problems, although it is not certain that this is why they were excluded from service at the front. But many were perfectly valid fighters, like a battalion of volontaires étrangers sent to Syria in 1940, composed mainly of Spaniards.

  18. Berteil, L'Armée de Weygand, 51.

  19. Liddell Hart, Strange Company, 206–7.

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS

  Aage de Denmark, Prince. Mes souvenirs de la Légion étrangère. Paris: Payot, 1936.

  Ainley, Henry. In Order to Die: With the Foreign Legion in Indo-China. London: Burke, 1955.

  D'Albeca, Alexandre. La France au Dahomey. Paris: Hachette, 1895.

  Alexander, Michael. The Reluctant Legionnaire: An Escapade. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1956.

  Allainmat, Henry. L'épreuve: Le “bagne” de la Légion. Paris: Balland, 1977.

  Amiable, Eugène. Légionnaire au Mexique. Brussels: Charles Dessart, 1942.

  Anderson, Roy C. Devils, Not Men: The History of the French Foreign Legion. London: Robert Hale, 1987.

  Andrew, Christopher, and Kanya-Forstner, A.S. France Overseas. London: Thames and Hudson, 1984.

  Anonymous, Pages de gloire de la division marocaine (1914–1918). Paris: Chapelot, nd.

  ——. Reconnaissance du groupe mobile de Berguent, du 23 au 30 Janvier 1906. Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1906.

  Armandy, André. Les réprouvés. Paris: Editions de France, 1930.

  Armengaud, Captain Jean-Louis. Le Sud-Oranais: Journal d'un légionnaire: Treize mois de colonne pendant l'insurrection des Oulad-Sidi-Cheikh soulevés par le Marabout Bou-Amama, 1881–1882. Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1893.